John Corabi Details His Financial Struggles After Mötley Crüe

Former Mötley Crüe singer John Corabi recently sat down with Logical Logistics for an interview and revealed that he went through some financial difficulties following his departure from the band.

John Corabi made a name for himself in the rock music industry with his tenures in several bands like The Scream, Union, ESP, Ratt, and The Dead Daisies. However, the singer is best known as the lead singer of Mötley Crüe, which he fronted between 1992 and 1997 in the absence of the band’s original vocalist Vince Neil. The group chose Corabi as their new frontman since they thought he could sing anything.

However, this new lineup didn’t attract as much attention as before from the fans. Corabi’s works with the band didn’t sell as well as their previous records. Eventually, Crüe’s record label forced them to reunite with Vince Neil, or else they wouldn’t provide funds to record the new album. The band agreed to the record label’s terms and rehired Neil, causing John Corabi to leave the group after a brief tenure.

During a new interview, Corabi addressed the period after leaving Mötley Crüe and his financial struggles. Contrary to what everyone assumed, he didn’t make that much money during his tenure in Crüe. The singer explained that his family went through some health issues during the five years he spent in the group. Thus, he needed to take care of them financially and pay taxes to the government. His money was enough to maintain his life for five years, but it began getting low due to the changes in the music industry.

His financial struggles after Mötley Crüe, in John Corabi’s words:

“That’s one of the things everybody assumes, because I did the Mötley thing, that I was a multi-millionaire. And it was funny. I made money when I first joined Mötley; I got bonuses, publishing, and all these advances and stuff. But at the same time, I joined Mötley in 1992, and I left the band in ’97; in that five years, my son was diagnosed with diabetes, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer.

So fortunately/unfortunately, I wound up taking care of them financially. And then there’s the normal sh*t. You have to pay your taxes. I remember, f*ck, there were two tax checks that I wrote. My first one was $139,000, and I had to spend $219,000 in taxes the following year. Like, wow. So by the time the five years had passed, I lived off that money and beyond, but it was starting to get dangerously low. The music industry was changing; a lot of the ’80s bands weren’t selling any records. So it was a weird time.”

You can check out the rest of the interview below.