Motley Crue taking break from road for 12-show residency at The Joint

Every Sunday during the NFL season at the Red Rock Resort sports book, right in the center of the VIP section, you're likely to find a certain fair-haired rocker, his wrist gleaming from a watch so blinged out, its face looks like a diamond-encrusted hubcap.

"That's my couch," Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil says of his regular game day perch. "That's how much I go there. They gave me my own couch."

Neil's long been a regular around town. He first moved here in '95, buying a home on the third hole of the Desert Inn Country Club.

"And then Steve Wynn bought my house out from under me and bulldozed it," he chuckles.

Neil's Vegas roots run much deeper than that, though. His aunt was one of the first card dealers at the Plaza, Neil says, and he's been coming here since he was a kid.

"I remember me and my sister running around Circus Circus in the late '60s, early '70s," he recalls. "We came here a lot."

As such, when Motley Crue was approached about playing a 12-show Vegas residency at The Joint, the first hard-rock band to do so, Neil was all about it.

"When they said, 'Hey, would you want to do it?' I was the first one to say, 'Hell yeah, don't blow this deal! We'll do whatever,' " Neil says. "The second that happened, the emails were flying back and forth between the band guys going, 'What if we did this? What if we did that?' "

Motley Crue has long been known for its gnarlier-than-thou live gigs -- the band is like a hard-rock Ringling Bros., with high-flying drum kits, pinup-worthy dancers and, yes, the occasional circus tent.

And their concerts still do big business. The band grossed more than $20 million in touring revenue in 2011.

But according to Neil, the appeal of taking a brief break from the road is the ability to put on an even more over-the-top show without having to be limited by the costs and logistics associated with mounting a tour.

"There's so much more stuff that you can do when (the production) doesn't have to move every night, load up in 15 trucks and then reassemble the next day," he says. "I mean, can you imagine taking 'Le Reve' out on the road five days a week? It's impossible. So, we're able to really use our imaginations and do things that we could never do anywhere else. We've been talking with engineers and technicians and trying to use the latest technology and visuals and just kind of go crazy."

In addition to aerialists, dancers, a "mini" Motley Crue band of little people, an acoustic set and more, the show will attempt to be an all-encompassing, more interactive experience, with the group not confined to one spot in the venue.

"We're going to be utilizing the whole place," he explains. "We won't necessarily be on the stage. We could be on the sides, above you, in back of you."

Nor will the Crue's presence be limited to the concert hall.

"We're making the Hard Rock our little home, basically," Neil says. "They're actually coming to pick up my hot rod in an hour to put into the entryway. They're filling up the sides of the entry into The Joint with memorabilia. I'm going to have my racing suit in there, and all the guys are pitching in stuff to fill up the place. It's going to be fun."

Residency aside, Neil's profile in Vegas seems to be ever growing of late.

Locally, he's launched a tequila line, a charter airline business, bars and tattoo shops, with plans to open another two parlors on the Strip in the near future.

Of late, he's been contemplating life after Crue, intimating that he may step down from the band before too long and focus more on his solo career, as he still tours with his own band regularly.

He doesn't talk retirement, though.

Like the city he calls home, the dude has a hard time sitting still for long.

"I just spent a month and a half on my boat in the Bahamas," he says. "Floating around the ocean for a month and a half was great, got a good tan, but now, it's time to go back to work."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.