Mötley Crüe's Tommy Lee Shares Appreciation for Skrillex's Creative Process In New Interview

Tommy Lee is hard at work preparing for the release of his solo album, Andro, but after dropping his first two lead singles from the record, the iconic Mötley Crüe drummer has had time to reflect.

In a recent interview with Australia's HEAVY Magazine, Lee ruminated on his internal instincts as an artist and how his many sonic influences are sneaking into his workflow in a variety of forms. 

To better illustrate his point, Lee brought up Skrillex, who was clearly top-of-mind. Lee expressed a certain creative alignment with Skrillex due to their shared appreciation for electronic and metal and shared instinct to take their music into heavier sonic territory. 

"What I do, though, is if you think about it, and if you listen to the beats, a lot of the sounds on the record are not your typical fucking electronic sounds; they’re fucking some pretty beasty, gnarly sounds from the dirty-ass bass to the drum beats to the hyperness of them. So my background and my influences are constantly sneaking out in all sorts of ways, all over the place, actually, but just in different forms," Lee commented.

"It’s like when you listen to Skrillex," he continued. "If you really listen to his stuff, that is fucking electronic metal — a lot of it is, super-heavy, electronic metal. So those are his influences popping out all over the place. Very similar to mine, where they do come out, but they come out in different ways via different sounds.”

While Lee seeks to challenge listeners' pre-existing assumptions about him with his forthcoming album, he states his creative bias continues to skew toward heavy metal. "There's so many styles that I love, [but metal] is definitely one that's always there, always in the room, pounding on the door," he elaborated. 

Tommy Lee's full solo album Andro is due for release on October 16th, 2020.