MÖTLEY CRÜE Guitarist Wants To Record 'A Sgt. Pepper' Next Year

MÖTLEY CRÜE guitarist Mick Mars and bassist Nikki Sixx recently spoke to MTV.com about the group's plans for a new studio album, the much-anticipated follow-up to 2000's "New Tattoo".

"There is a new album in the works, but we're taking our time on it," Mars told MTV.com. "For me, I would like to see like a 'Sgt. Pepper', an 'Electric Ladyland', something really outstanding and new. I have a zillion ideas and I'm sure Nikki and Tommy [Lee] and Vince [Neil] do, as well. We just haven't sat down and started working together yet, because the tour's been so extensive."

Nikki expects to begin work on a new album in May 2006, after extensive touring in the U.S., Japan and Australia.

"We did some pretty diverse records throughout our career," Sixx told MTV.com. "We've gone from 'Dr. Feelgood' to the [1994 self-titled] John Corabi record to 'Generation Swine', and it was all based on us just being creative. Some of it was more accepted, some of it was less accepted, but if you look at the history of the band, from the first record on, we've always done something fresh."

Regarding the musical direction of the upcoming album, Sixx said, "I don't want to be part of that trend where bands that have been around for more than 20 years become mellow," he said. "Even with U2, a band I respect, everything has this older, mellower feel to it. You hear that in a lot of rock bands. I don't mind having ballads and medium tempo songs — I just hope we never become a bunch of pussies.

"It's just amazing to see a younger audience out there," he continued. "When we made a decision to be a band again, a lot of people were saying, 'You guys are like DEF LEPPARD — your audience is going to be, like, 40-year-olds.' And we were like, 'What the fuck?!' The most exciting part of this has been seeing new faces as well as the original faces — our original fans are wonderful. But as a band, you want to reinvent yourself and you hope you get rediscovered. BLACK SABBATH is a great example; U2's evolved. They have a new audience and kept the original audience. That's our dream."