Heavy Meddling on the Web by Robert Levine

Mötley Crüe and Megadeth bring hard rock into the '90s

During a recent Mötley Crüe concert at Chicago's Rosemont Horizon, vocalist Vince Neil paused between songs and bellowed to the crowd, "Tonight, we're going to do something a bit special." past tours have featured Vegas-worthy pyrotechnics and revolving drum sets, but nothing could brace the fans for what they'd be experiencing that night: a cyberjam. Yes, the Crüe announced that it was gonna play with a fan named Neil Vaillencourt, who would be jamming along from a television station in Detroit - via the Net.

Thanks to the unglamorous technology of fiberoptic phone lines, Vaillencourt appeared on a screen above the stage, guitar in hand. Together, band and fan played a cover of "Anarchy in the U.K.," trading licks across hundreds of miles without missing a beat. "I had chills," says bassist Nikki Sixx. "He hit a note and the crowd cheered, and I was like, 'Oh my God, it works.'"

The Rosemont audience was equally surprised to see a band so firmly rooted in '80s-style big hair and power chords experimenting with '90s technology. But Mötley Crüe has taken several bold steps into the future, most of them on the Web. At a time when metal has virtually vanished from MTV and mainstream radio, the band is using RealAudio Netcasts, Web-based chats, and online ticket sales to connect with fans.

Though electronic and alternative rock dominate the music scene on the Net (even post-punks like Pavement boast more fan sites than the multiplatinum Crüe has inspired), metal has found a home in cyberspace. Megadeth has a first-rate site with message boards and live chat; Van Halen's 1996 frontman switch inspired endless online debates; and some of the best hard-rock-oriented sites, like Heavy Metal News and BNR Metal Pages, keep fans updated on the activities of their favorite guitar gods.

Mötley Crüe doesn't maintain its own site, but band members recognize that the Web offer more than just promotion opportunities. Sixx says he and drummer Tommy Lee have been frequent flyers in cyberspace since they lugged early Macintosh portable computers around on 1987's Girls Girls Girls tour. After discovering that e-mail was a great way to keep in touch with friends from the road, Sixx began visiting the Web to see what people were saying about him. "Fans would say, 'I'm going to build a Web site for you,' and I would say, 'A what?'" Sixx recalls. "But once I got out there, I was like, 'You mean I can type in any word I want and get information on it?'... [Now] I spend hours out there."

Sixx's interest spurred Mötley Crüe to mastermind a site fancy enough to take advantage of Shockwave and savvy enough to offer text-only versions of tour dates and band news for fans who can't experience the multimedia bells and whistles. the band's "Swine Interactive Network" site tracks their Mötley Crüe vs. The Earth tour, offering photos and diaries, a timeline, a couple of RealAudio songs from each performance, and a Crowd-O-Meter that measures audience applause in decibels (Detroit Rock City clapped the loudest).

The Crüe's site also posts a set of e-mail addresses for the four band members, who have been known to trade messages with their fans. "I communicate with our fans and do things for our fans that have never been done before," Sixx says. "the cyberjam goes right back to the kid, who was me, who was anyone who ever grew up and wanted to be in a band, sitting in his bedroom with his door closed playing his favorite record and standing in front of his mirror playing air guitar. If I could have plugged in and jammed [with my heroes], I would have lost my cookies."

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