Hard Rock Music is Traveling “Back to the Future”

The year was 1985, and the world was a much simpler place.

In an attempt to escape from terrorists, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) put the pedal to the metal of Doc Brown’s DeLorean / time machine and ended up thirty years back in time.  While McFly was fighting back his mother’s advances in an effort to ensure that his parents got together in the future, hard rock music was thriving in the real world.

Hard rock artists sang about sex, drugs and rock-n-roll because it was what they knew.  For better or worse, it was how they lived their lives both on and off the stage.

Excess was the norm for hard rock artists back in 1985, as evidenced by the flamboyant wardrobes, the heavily-teased hair, the over-the-top stage shows and the sheer multitude of groupies who wanted to get close to these rock gods, if only for a night.

They were living the dream.  All of the girls wanted to be with them, and all of the guys wanted to be like them.  But most importantly, their music provided a great escape from the pressures of the real world.

W.A.S.P. brought out the “Wild Child” in all of us as we experienced “Crazy Nights” with Loudness.

Accept had us “Screaming For A Love Bite” while KISS took it a step further by encouraging us to “Uh! All Night.”

“In My Dreams,” I thought that Dokken had us all “Under Lock and Key,” but I was wrong.  Somehow, we had lost our way.   We thought that we had found Nirvana, but it turned out to be something else entirely.

It took a number of years, but we were finally able to wash the grunge off of us to once again become Dio’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Children.”

After an extremely long journey, it seems only fitting that Motley Crue is at the forefront of welcoming hard rock music back to “Home Sweet Home.”

In January of 2008, Nikki Sixx came up with the idea for a summer tour called Crue Fest.

Dubbed “The Loudest Show On Earth,” Crue Fest featured a number of bands that Motley Crue felt “embodied the spirit of rock and roll.”

Motley Crue headlined the tour which featured four other hard rock artists: Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Trapt and Sixx: A.M. (Nikki Sixx’s side project).

In April of 2009, Nikki Sixx and DJ Ashba (Sixx: A.M.’s guitarist) produced the major label debut for a band called The Last Vegas, entitled “Whatever Gets You Off.” The album was released on Sixx’s Eleven Seven Records.

The Last Vegas represents everything that hard rock should be.  They’re dirty and sleazy enough to sound right at home on a dive bar stage, but their glam image, confident swagger and incredible songs make them ideally suited to one day fill arenas as a headliner.

The resurgence that hard rock music is currently experiencing will only be enhanced and accelerated by up-and-coming bands like The Last Vegas working with hard rock music icons like Motley Crue.

Once you’ve checked out The Last Vegas’ video for the song “Apologize” (below), you’ll realize that the only thing that they have to apologize for is not arriving sooner to help launch the next phase of the hard rock music revolution.