You can't help but laugh when Tommy Lee declares, "I'm trying to avoid all the mayhem." Though he's referring to the scene at Washington, D.C.'s RFK Stadium right behind him, where 60,000 fans are cheering the bands playing at the WHFS Festival, the statement is obviously flush with meaning, as anyone who's followed Lee's on- and off-stage life for the past decade would attest. "No pun intended," he says with a smile that widens just below his braids. "I'd rather chat here where it's peaceful."

For the past several months, Lee has been underground refining and brewing his eclectic new project, Methods of Mayhem, a major artistic diversion from his work with legendary hair metal band Motley Crue. He's in town today to visit some friends performing at the festival and to promote his upcoming album. As we sit in a large tent behind the stadium and discuss his creative leap, Lee holds his cell phone and dials his home digits between gigantic bites of the burger he's been craving for the past two hours. "I've been all over the place today," he mumbles with a mouthful, "and I haven't eaten a thing, nor had the chance to call Pam and the kids." He gets up with his burger and steps away for privacy. "Excuse me for one minute."

As Lee converses on his phone a few yards away, phrases like "everything's great," "how are they doin'" and "that's so cute" are heard repeatedly for the next two minutes, before the words, "OK, baby, I'll check in later... I love you too" are whispered quietly, almost shyly.

Lee sits back down and begins to wolf down his second burger. "So yeah, man, I'm just dying to release this album. I recorded tracks with Lil' Kim, Snoop Dogg, Fred [Durst of Limp Bizkit], Scott and Ken from the Crystal Method, U-God from the Wu-Tang Clan, my sidekick TiLo [Tim Murray] and my buddy Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys. Wait 'til you hear it, dude, you're gonna shit." His eyes light up. "It's a fusion of jungle, house, hip-hop, rock, techno. It's sick!"

Lee digs into his backpack for a sampler tape and hands it over. "Here, man. I'm like a little punk again. It's amazing what making music will do to you. I'm almost out of the lab."

It's fitting that Lee refers to his home studio as the lab, since the music he and his colleagues have formulated there is more potent and complex than the average project. The album is a maniacal blend of boisterous beats, chain-saw guitar riffs, chaotic scratches and synth-laden splatters, all of which surge aggressively with full-throttle, hip-hop overtones. But Lee cringes when he hears the term "experiment." "I've been wanting to make music like this for a while," he explains. "I quit Motley Crue officially just so I could make this music and be as disconnected as possible with that term. It was one of those situations that if I stayed in Motley Crue, people would be saying, 'Oh, this is just some f---in' side project' and no one would take me seriously. I had to actually quit and say, 'You know what, I'm done with that phase of my life. This is phase number two.' And, hopefully, people will see that and say to themselves 'OK, that guy just left the gravy train to go do something completely different. Maybe he'll be successful, maybe he'll flop. But that motherf---er deserves respect just for risking so much in order to follow his own heart."

When Lee is done eating, we head toward the artist trailers, where he plans on meeting up with his friends from Bush, 311, Filter and Limp Bizkit -- all of whom are performing today. During the stroll, Lee explains the criteria he set for the collaborations on the album. "My main concern," he says, "was that I wanted to work with cool, down-to-earth people -- not anyone who's too fabulous or egotistical. I've made music with glamorous people before, and I'll never do it again. I can't relate to that anymore."

Lee's voice echoes with the bitter note on which he left Motley Crue, but, at the moment, he's a bit reluctant to elaborate on the topic. Instead, he decides to give props to his newfound collaborators for helping him capitalize on his new mentality. "Man, I loved working with Lil' Kim," he raves. "I was working on this track called 'Get Naked' and I asked Snoop, 'Dude, what female rapper can I get to make it hotter?' I told him that she had to be good... but, more importantly, she had to be cool. Snoop said, 'Man, you need to get Lil' Kim on that track right now -- she's the most hardcore bitch out there, and she's the shit too. She's crazy cool.' I called up Kim and she said, 'I'll be right over!' She flew out to my house and made the song so nasty and gnarly, that I have to edit the f--- out of it. But it's gonna be the first single on the album.

"And I'll never forget the day that U-God came over to listen to my tracks," Lee continues. "We sat down, drank some cocktails, smoked a couple of blunts... and all of a sudden he stands up and goes, 'I got it. I got it!' Dude, he got on the mic and started spitting out some crazy rhymes. I couldn't believe his words. Ever since then, I call him 'Mister On-Some-Other-Shit,' because there's some deep stuff going on upstairs in his head. I mean, he was spitting out some Phantom Menace stuff before the movie was even out. He's incredibly deep."

Lee's enthusiastic rambling continues for a few more minutes before we reach the artist compound. As we go our separate ways, he states, "if there's anything I've learned from the last couple of years... it's to not give up on the things I believe in." And with a firm handshake he concludes, "because once I've done that, I'm a loser no matter what I gain."

A week later, Tommy Lee is on the end of the line, breathing a sigh of relief. "The album is done," he exhales, "I finished it on my birthday. What a great day it was to turn thirty-seven." I tell him that it seems like his latest birthday should officially mark phase two of his life. "Yeah," he replies, "you can kinda say that. But actually, phase two began the moment that phase one ended. Once you conceive something more positive, you've got to act on it."

When asked what clinched the end of his Motley Crue phase, Lee pauses. "Do you remember a couple of years ago when Vince [Neil] came back to Motley Crue?" he asks. "At first, when we got back together, Vince wasn't with us ... and then he eventually came back to the Crue. Prior to Vince's return, we were heading in a very different direction. Everything at that point in our careers was new and exciting, because we were doing some new stuff. We were happy. To me it was great because we were starting off fresh -- that was my motive to begin with. And then Vince came back and it all changed because things became the same again. I was really trying hard to hang in there, but it was like I was so over it already. It stopped being exciting to me. I became unhappy. That unhappiness started overflowing into my musical life, and then into my personal life. Then I ended up in jail."

Lee served a three-month sentence after pleading no contest in early 1998 to charges that he assaulted his wife Pamela Lee at their Malibu home. "Shit got really bad for me," Lee reflects. "When I was in jail, I just sat there in solitary confinement and thought to myself, 'Why am I so unhappy? Why, why, why?' And I got the answers, man. I realized that I needed to change everything in my life. I needed to go a different direction. I said to myself, 'Tommy, you're in denial, man. You've got to get out of your hole and try something new creatively.' I was seething over my musical career and it really f---ed with me. I couldn't function. And the family aspect of my life was becoming stressful as well. Shit was really hittin' the fan. That's why I ended up in jail."

Lee says that all aspects of his life have been coming together dramatically since he quit Motley Crue. "Now that my head's out of my ass," he admits, "I see much daylight. Things are unbelievable with Pam -- and getting better by the day. Now that the album's done, all that's left to do is some promotional stuff and some touring. After that, I'll be spending a lot more time with Pam and my sons [Dylan Jagger and Brandon]. For the longest time, I've been working so that they can have enough. Pretty soon, we'll have plenty of each other. I can't wait to be happy again."

PAT CHARLES
(November 29, 1999)