Let’s think of an alternative reality where John Corabi hadn’t accepted Mötley Crüe’s offer to replace Vince Neil and continued his career with the Scream. What would have happened? Would the Scream become one of the most commercially successful rock acts? While recently chatting with Ultimate Guitar, former Mötley Crüe and the Scream frontman John Corabi discussed this alternative reality
“Well, it was a tough time for rock music because trends were shifting and such,” said Corabi as he mentioned how the birth of grunge made things more challenging. “I don’t know; I guess the label did what it could. We were on MTV, and we had a lot of radio support.”
The vocalist continued, “Honestly, I could sit here all day long and try and say grunge f*cked us, or the label didn’t support us, but the thing that stopped us in our tracks was me getting the phone call from Mötley. Who knows? Maybe if the Scream stayed together, we would have gone on to sell a million records. I have no idea.”
Even though some of Scream’s efforts achieved commercial success, the band never got to promote their music with a proper tour. John argued, “I think ‘Let It Scream’ had sold a couple hundred thousand records. And you gotta remember that we didn’t get to tour much either. We did a tour with Bullet Boys and another tour with Dangerous Toys, and that was it.”
To the singer, the Scream had the potential to becom a popular band, but the offer from Mötley Crüe ended things. John Corabi said, “We were supposed to go back to Europe and do an entire European tour, and then we were gonna go to Australia, Japan, and all these places, but then I got the phone call. So, would we have sold more? I don’t know. I know we were making some noise, but Mötley called, and everything just stopped.”
Maybe the Scream was never meant to last long or become as successful as Corabi imagined it would since the timing of the band’s debut coincided with the birth of grunge. Perhaps grunge would’ve hurt the success of the Scream’s commerciality on the rock scene, but to John Corabi, things had seemed bright for the band’s future back in the day.
It’s pretty natural for John to wonder what would have happened if the Scream hadn’t disbanded, but it sounds like Mötley Crüe’s offer ended its prospects. However, the only act Mötley Crüe messed up a bit wasn’t the Scream. Check out what Hanoi Rocks’ alternative future could have looked like if Razzle hadn’t died in a traffic accident while returning from the liquor store with Vince Neil.
