Michael Monroe was interviewed by Janne Innanfors from Swedish radio’s Rockklassiker and discussed meeting with Mötley Crüe members Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, and Vince Neil for the first time in years in June 2023 at Finland’s Rockfest and how he wrote a letter to Neil.
Monroe reflected how he “wanted to clean the slate” and put the past behind them in regards to Neil causing the accident in 1984 that killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley.
"So what I did was I knew that they were playing this festival in Finland last summer, so I wrote to [Def Leppard's] Joe Elliott, who's a sweetheart,” Monroe says. “He's an angel. I love that guy so much, and he knows everything about every band since, like, '60s and '70s — he's got all the records of every band ever. So I wrote him, I asked him, 'Could you pass this letter on to Nikki? I'd like to approach him.' And I wrote this note saying some words, basically just saying that I would just like to reach out and see if we can just let bygones be bygones. And even though we're connected by that whole thing, the tragedy, that I'd rather have that be on a more positive note and stuff. So, in any case, I wished him all the best. And he replied, e-mailed me right away. He said, 'Thank you, Michael. Thank you.' I took it all to heart. It was a very heartfelt letter, and you could see he was sincere. And he was, like, 'Yeah, we're coming down tomorrow. Joe Elliott said that you're coming down. Let's meet up tomorrow and see each other again.' And I said, 'Yeah, sometime I'd like to meet Vince.' I never met Vince Neil before. So I said, 'I would like to meet him too, if possible, at some point.' And I was hoping to be able to meet him.
"If I'd gotten there a bit earlier, I would have ended up probably playing the harp on ‘Smokin’ In The Boys Room'. I had my harp with me, but I had my own gig that same day, earlier in the afternoon, in Turku, in the city of Turku, so we drove there, but I got there, like, five minutes before they went on stage, so I was on the side of the stage. I watched the show. I never saw them live before. They were opening for; Alice Cooper was actually opening for them once in Finland, but I didn't stay for their show, but this time I watched the whole show. And I thought it was; you know, it was good. Vince Neil was singing for real, I could tell, and it was really good; it was really sounding great out there. And after the show, they came offstage, and Nikki came to hug me, and then Vince came and we met and I just told him that Razzle always wanted us to meet because us singers, we're alike. And he smiled, and then we looked each other in the eyes for about like a half a minute or something. I could just see how much pain he's been living with."
Monroe goes to say about Neil, "I realized he’s the one who's; out of all of us affected by Razzle's death, he's the one who suffered the most, obviously, and it's never been the same. So, then, he took off, he goes his own way, and the rest of the band kind of go their own way. So, Nikki said, 'I'll see you in a minute backstage.' And then, I went to see Nikki backstage, and we had a great talk, and caught up on everything. And Tommy too.
"But I still felt like I wanted to say some things to Vince. So I wrote this letter to him that I asked Nikki to pass on to him, about a week later. I worked on it for a little while. I wanted to choose the words carefully, but I wanted him to know, maybe make him feel a little bit better about things. So, I sent that letter. It was actually on my birthday that I sent it finally to Nikki, and I said, 'Do you think you can maybe pass this on to Vince?' And he said, 'Yeah, sure.' A couple of days later, he said Vince came to his room and he read the letter and he was, like, 'That's amazing.' He had a big smile on his face and he said, 'That's amazing.'"
"I wanted to make him feel that if he still feels like; I'm sure he's sick and tired of being tormented by the whole thing, by the accident, that he should forgive himself and live a happy life and be really… That's what Razzle would want for him,” says Monroe about writing the letter to Neil. “He's a good person. He deserves happiness in his life. He's had a really rough time and he's never been the same after that. It's a horrible thing to happen. And it could have happened to any of us… I said certain things that hopefully made him feel a little bit better about the whole thing. I could tell that he's been suffering a lot and he's never been the same since then. So, I was glad to be able to do that, reach out to him. And next time they come to Finland or wherever we are, if we're in the same place, I'll be up there playing the harp on 'Smokin' In The Boys Room'."
