Tommy Lee
Thomas Lee is a Greek musician, best known as the co-founder and drummer of heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. He also founded rap metal band Methods of Mayhem and has pursued solo musical projects.
Early life
Lee was born Thomas Lee Bass on October 3, 1962, in Athens, Greece, to father David Lee Thomas Bass, an American U.S. Army sergeant, and mother Vassiliki "Voula" Papadimitriou, a contestant on the 1957 Miss Greece beauty contest. He has a younger sister, Athena, who is also a drummer. When Lee was approximately two years old, his father moved the family back to the United States, settling in California.Lee received his first drum sticks when he was four years old, and his first proper drum kit when he was a teenager. Lee attended Royal Oak High School where he met Vince Neil and was part of the marching band. He dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music, starting with the L.A. club band Suite 19. As a teenager, he listened to Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Kiss, AC/DC and Sweet. His main drumming influences are John Bonham, Tommy Aldridge, Alex Van Halen and Terry Bozzio.
Music career
In the late 1970s Lee's band, Suite 19, was a regular on the Sunset Strip club circuit in Los Angeles along with other up-and-coming acts such as Van Halen and Quiet Riot. He became acquainted with bassist Nikki Sixx, whose bands Sister and later London played the same circuit. Sixx was forming a theatrical band that borrowed heavily from Sister's fusion of occult imagery with a theatrical heavy metal performance, and became a fan of Lee's drumming. It was during this time period that Lee dropped his surname and earned the nickname "T-bone" due to his height and his lean physique. When London finally broke up in 1981, Lee and Sixx decided to form a new group together. Shortly afterward, guitarist Mick Mars joined the band. Seeking a charismatic frontman, Lee mentioned to the others a singer, Vince Neil, whom he had known casually in high school; Neil soon joined the group, and Mötley Crüe was formed.Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe quickly built a strong fanbase, and released its debut album Too Fast for Love in 1981 on its own independent label. Elektra Records decided to sign the band shortly thereafter, reissuing the debut in 1982. The band then began a string of hit releases throughout the decade—1983's Shout at the Devil, 1985's Theatre of Pain, 1987's Girls, Girls, Girls, and 1989's Dr. Feelgood—establishing the quartet as one of the biggest hard rock/metal bands of the 1980s.Lee used several memorable gimmicks during his drum solos at concerts, such as having his entire kit revolving and spinning, or having the entire kit suspended above the crowd while he continued to play. He was noted for mooning the crowd at nearly every show. The band was known for its decadent behavior both on and offstage, often consuming excessive amounts of drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, pills and alcohol. The duo of Lee and Sixx are called the "Terror Twins".
In 2004, Lee reunited with the original Mötley Crüe line-up to release the double-disc anthology album entitled Red, White & Crüe, which went quadruple-platinum and launched a monumental reunion tour to support it, The Red, White & Crüe Tour 2005: Better Live Than Dead, the band's first tour in six years. Mötley Crüe finished the year at #8 on the Top Concert Money Earners list. It played 81 shows and grossed million according to Billboard Boxscore.
Solo career
Lee came back once with Mötley Crüe to go on the Crüe's Greatest Hits tour in 1999. With the popularity of rap metal, he formed a band called Methods of Mayhem. The band released a self-titled album the same year and toured in support of it. Although Lee distanced himself from Mötley Crüe after splitting, he agreed to take part in the band's 2001 autobiography, The Dirt. In addition to Mötley Crüe and Methods of Mayhem, Lee has made guest appearances on albums by other artists, such as Stuart Hamm, Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie. He also contributed a song, "Planet Boom" to the soundtrack of then-wife Pamela Anderson's 1996 movie, Barb Wire, and produced an album for the pre-Goldfinger project from John Feldmann and Simon Williams, the Electric Love Hogs.Lee parted ways with Methods of Mayhem partner TiLo and began recording with members of Incubus. He then released his first solo album. The album, 2002's Never a Dull Moment, has tones of rap metal and electronica. The song "Blue" features guest vocalist Rodleen Getsic. In August 2002, Tommy Lee and his solo band joined Ozzfest, mainstage. In 2006, he formed a new band called Rock Star Supernova with Jason Newsted and Gilby Clarke.
The 2006 season of Rock Star selected Lukas Rossi as the lead singer for Supernova. Dilana, Magni Ásgeirsson, and Toby Rand with his own band Juke Kartel were the three runners up and accepted an offer to go on tour with Supernova. The self-titled debut album Rock Star Supernova was released on November 21, 2006.
Lee released his autobiography, Tommyland and his second solo album, Tommyland: The Ride in 2005. The CD featured as a soundtrack to the book and includes the singles, "Tryin to be Me", "Good Times" which was the theme song to his reality TV series Tommy Lee Goes to College and "Hello, Again" which features Andrew McMahon from Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin. Lee was also a guest DJ at WXRK "K-Rock" in New York during the Fourth of July Monster Metal Meltdown in 2005.
He also recorded drum tracks for the alternative rock band Jack's Mannequin, which has released the album Everything in Transit.
File:Criss Angel and Tommy Lee.jpg|thumb|upright|Lee with illusionist Criss Angel at the 2007 Scream Awards
In November 2007, it was announced by Nikki Sixx that Lee was no longer a member of Mötley Crüe. The drummer reportedly quit after the rest of the band sued his manager, Carl Stubner, for forcing Tommy to take part in reality TV shows, thus forcing the cancellation of a lengthy leg of Crüe tour dates in 2006. Lee had already quit once in September 2007 before returning to the band. Vince Neil denied the claims that Tommy Lee resigned from the band, and said that Mötley Crüe would be going into the studio in January to start recording its new album. In the end, Lee did end up recording the new album, Saints of Los Angeles, and toured with the band in 2008 on its Crüe Fest tour.
Tommy Lee's more recent artistic endeavors include touring as an electronic dance music DJ with his Methods of Mayhem DJ/production partner, DJ Aero. As DJs, they are also known as Electro Mayhem, and clocked over 60 club dates as DJs throughout North America in 2007 alone, with stops in the Bahamas and Central America. Lee and Aero debuted as DJs on the mainstage at Ultra Music Festival during Winter Music Conference in 2004. Lee and Aero began DJing together in 2000. In 2009, Lee appeared in select cities with Sharam, one half of Grammy-winning Deep Dish, accompanying Sharam live on the piano during his house DJ sets. Lee and DJ Aero also accompanied Deadmau5 in his 2011 Meowington Hax tour. He played keyboards with Deftones at a benefit show for now deceased bassist Chi Cheng in 2009.
In 2014, Lee performed on the Smashing Pumpkins' Monuments to an Elegy album. That same year, he rejoined his Mötley Crüe bandmates for the group's farewell tour. As part of a legal agreement between the four band members, each signed a contract which would prevent any of them from ever touring under the Mötley Crüe moniker again unless all members were involved.
In 2022, Lee had a phone conversation with Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins just hours before the latter's death. It was reported that Lee was one of the last people to speak to Hawkins while he was still alive. Lee later appeared with Nikki Sixx in a tribute concert for Hawkins at Kia Forum in Inglewood, California on September 27, 2022.
Film and television appearances
In 2004, Lee starred in a reality show on NBC titled Tommy Lee Goes to College. Lee was also one of the producers of the show. In spring 2008, Lee began filming another reality TV show with rapper Ludacris for Planet Green titled Battleground Earth. In 2019, Lee guest starred on Season 7, Episode 14 of The Goldbergs as Professor Lee.Throughout October 2020, Lee played the Devil in four episodes of Halloween in Hell, a fictionalized musical horror podcast. The series also starred Iann Dior, 24kGoldn, Dana Dentata, Phem, and Machine Gun Kelly.
In 2022, Lee starred in the action horror thriller The Retaliators as a strip club DJ.
Personal life
Relationships
Lee has been married four times.His first wife was Elaine Starchuk, whom he married in 1984 and divorced a year later.
On May 10, 1986, Lee married his second wife, actress Heather Locklear. The couple divorced in 1993. Their relationship was later chronicled in the Mötley Crüe biographical film The Dirt which was released in March 2019 on Netflix.
Before meeting actress and Playboy Playmate Pamela Anderson, Lee was engaged to model Bobbie Brown. On February 19, 1995, just four days after meeting her, Lee married Anderson. They have two sons together: Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee. The couple divorced in 1998, and were involved in a custody battle over their sons until both were granted joint custody in 2002. Although divorced, the couple reunited briefly upon Lee's release from jail but eventually split again in 2001.
From 2002 until 2003, Lee was engaged to dancer Mayte Garcia, ex-wife of Prince. Garcia sang on Lee's album Never a Dull Moment and toured with him.
In 2008, it was announced that Lee and his ex-wife Anderson were back together and living with each other and their children, but they split for good soon afterward.
From 2014 until 2017, Lee was engaged to Greek-German singer Sofia Toufa.
Lee announced on February 14, 2018, that he had proposed to his girlfriend, social media celebrity Brittany Furlan. They were married a year later on February 14, 2019.