BLACK VEIL BRIDES frontman Andy Biersack has defended MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s controversial 1997 album Generation Swine, describing it as “f**king awesome.”
On Thursday, January 2, Biersack shared a post on his X account, writing: “I’ve been wanting to say this since I was 6 years old, and I think it’s finally time to tell you once and for all that the 1997 album Generation Swine by MÖTLEY CRÜE is objectively f**king awesome, and if you don’t like it, you are, regrettably, incorrect.”
When a follower asked why he had waited so long to share his thoughts, he replied: “It’s like they always say; sometimes it takes 28 years to defend a late 90’s outlier grunge record.”
Released in June 1997 through Elektra Records, Generation Swine ventured into techno influences and is often regarded as MÖTLEY CRÜE‘s most experimental and diverse album. One critic even noted that the track “Beauty” “sounds nothing like MÖTLEY CRÜE.”
The band initially began recording Generation Swine with John Corabi as the lead singer but ultimately brought back original vocalist Vince Neil, releasing the album with Neil‘s vocals.
During an episode of the “Outsider” podcast earlier this, Neil discussed Generation Swine. “I hated that record. I still hate that record,” Vince said. “[There are] no good songs on it. And I told ’em, I go, ‘This record sucks.’ ‘No. We love it. We love it.’”
When asked about his decision to rejoin MÖTLEY CRÜE following a four-year hiatus from the band between 1992 and 1996, Vince responded by saying: “Well, when MÖTLEY went out [on tour with Corabi as the band’s singer], their tickets stopped selling. And I was doing pretty good. But I wasn’t selling out places. I was opening for guys. And so their manager called me up and said, ‘We’d like to meet with you in New York.’ So I flew to New York and sat there and talked to ’em.’ And it took a while for me to say ‘okay.’ But I finally gave in and went to the recording studio where they were making Generation Swine, which was at Nikki‘s [Sixx] house. And… I don’t know. It was bad for a while, ’cause I didn’t wanna be there.”
Back in 2021, Corabi shared his insights on the creation of Generation Swine during an interview with Rob’s School Of Music. He said at the time: “We worked on that record for, God, almost two years. Now, the difference is I’m not a fan of the record that came out. ‘Cause you’ve gotta understand we had recorded a bunch of those songs, and they brought Vince back. Then they went back into the studio with him for, like, another year. And they switched things around, then they started playing with sound effects.
“I don’t mean this in any disrespect to MÖTLEY at all, but the bottom line of it is we did a record and it didn’t sell well — per their standards,” he continued, referencing 1994’s Mötley Crüe LP. “I mean, it went gold, but it didn’t sell well. The tour was a disaster. And I think, to be honest with you, Tommy [Lee, drums] and Nikki [Sixx, bass] and Scott [Humphrey, co-producer] were trying to reinvent themselves to be current. And at the time, bands like MARILYN MANSON, NINE INCH NAILS, ROB ZOMBIE, MINISTRY, PANTERA — all these bands were heavy, a lot of ’em were industrial, and they were just trying to figure out how to be relevant again. Which kind of led to a little bit of my demise, because I was just, like, ‘This is f**king bulls**t. Just do what you do. You’re MÖTLEY.’ And I’ve done the same thing.
“Even after I got out of MÖTLEY and I was in RATT, then I decided I was gonna do a solo record, I would record a few songs and I would do ’em and I’d go, ‘Man, I’ve gotta be relevant. I’ve gotta be relevant.’ So everybody gets caught up in it. But the bottom line of it is it took a manager, or a friend mine, to just sit there and go, ‘You know, Crab, listen, man. F**k that. You are what you are. You’re a bluesy kind of BEATLES, [LED] ZEPPELIN, AEROSMITH… That’s who you are. Don’t try to be something that you’re not. Stop looking at trends and just do what you do. There are people out there that like what you do.’ And at that point, once I just said, ‘You know what? F**k it. I’m just gonna do my own thing,’ then I was a lot better off.”
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.