Las Vegas Weekly

June 22, 2010 · 2:29 PM

Vince Neil’s new tell-all book: Sex, drugs and rock and roll

By Robin Leach

Vince Neil at the grand opening of his Tres Rios in the Las Vegas Hilton on June 12, 2010.

Photo: Valerie Nerres/ValerieNerres.com

When Motley Crue star Vince Neil’s book Tattoos & Tequila is published in September, nobody will ever say that one of rock’s most notorious frontmen held one thing back. It’s simultaneously stunning and shocking and raunchy and revealing. It’s what a rock legend is supposed to pen: sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Says Vince: “It’s a miracle we survived at all. A bottle of Jack Daniels and uncooked hot dogs do not make for a particularly well-balanced diet. We are all very lucky we didn’t kill ourselves!

“It might look like we were trying to do that, but death was never my intent. I just wanted to feel good and was looking for that kick, that high. Time changes a man. I ain’t 21 anymore. The spandex is over. I’m 49, I’m 5’9” and have had three plastic surgeries.

“These days, I’ve got businesses to run. I like the action. Something to get your heart pumping. It’s sure healthier than a syringe full of cocaine powder like I was doing back in ’81. Those days are now a lot more fun to talk about.”

I’ve started skimming through an advance copy of the candid tell-all and will have more later in Vegas DeLuxe when I devour it as a summer vacation must-read. Vince says it’s the perfect follow-up to the Motley Crue book The Dirt because he didn’t talk much about himself in that, and this new one is all him -- his loves, his life and his extraordinary adventures behind the wheel and under the sheets!

The nonstop sexual shenanigans around the world with groupies, strippers, models, Playboy and Penthouse beauties indoors and out in every place imaginable -- including behind bars -- almost defy belief. The explanation of what to really do with an egg burrito proves that Vince didn’t hold back and put everything out there.

Bestselling author and award-winning reporter Mike Sagar, who worked with Hunter S. Thompson as a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, collaborated with Vince on his memoir. “It’s a story of to hell and back,” he said. “It’s epic drug- and alcohol-fueled debauchery.”

The book is filled with good and bad memories, plus amusing and awful anecdotes from Vince’s girlfriends and wives, including first wife Beth, second wife Sharise, third wife Heidi and current wife Lia. Vince and Lia live part of the year near me here in Las Vegas and the other part in her Northern California hometown.

Meantime, Vince is promoting his Tattoos & Tequila solo album, and in a video interview with Gibson.com released this morning, he talks candidly about Motley Crue, the album and the new book. He also makes some revelations of his own.

The album out today features 11 tracks and is a compilation of defining hits, including nine he handpicked as influencing his career: “No Feelings” (The Sex Pistols), “Nobody’s Fault” (Aerosmith), “The Bitch Is Back” (Elton John), “Viva Las Vegas,” (Elvis Presley), “He’s a Whore” (Cheap Trick), “Long Cool Woman” (The Hollies), “Another Piece of Meat” (Scorpions), “Who’ll Stop the Rain” (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and “AC/DC” (The Sweet).

“They all have great memories for me. It’s a window into my life,” he told me when I helped him open his Tres Rios Tequila Bar and Cantina at the Las Vegas Hilton this month, at which he shared a tale of how he nearly drowned in a surfboard incident.

Vince is going on a nationwide tour of TV shows and media outlets when the book is released Sept. 23 from New York’s Grand Central Publishing.

Senior Editor Ben Greenberg told me: “It’s brutally honest. Nothing is held back. It’s raw and unfiltered and covers the band’s initial breakup and the impact of his daughter’s death. There’s all the insane stories of rock and roll excess, but in the end an inspirational story of a man who conquered his demons and is now a successful businessman.”

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.

Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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