Producer Howard Benson spoke to Billboard about his work on the music for the film adaptation of MÖTLEY CRÜE's biography, "The Dirt - Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band". The movie, which is being helmed by "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" director Jeff Tremaine, was picked up by Netflix after being previously developed at Focus Features and before that at Paramount. "I had the greatest time ever doing that," Benson said. "I haven't done that many films but I loved the process. You had to be on your A-game the whole time. You're constantly going back and forth between the music supervisors, the director, the producers; you have to make changes on the fly. I would do it again in a second. "The secret weapon we found was this kid named Timmy [Craven]; he was the lead singer of a band called MÖTLEY INC., which is a MÖTLEY CRÜE cover band," he continued. "I think the supervisors found him. He's an LAPD underwater rescue guy. He's like six-four; he could break you into pieces. And then he opens his mouth and he's Vince Neil." Asked if he ever crossed paths with MÖTLEY CRÜE, Benson said: "I did once because I was in a really bad band in L.A. when I first got out here. We used to play across the street at the Viper Room [then called the Central] and they were playing at The Whisky. I remember we had nobody at our shows, and they had people around the block. I remember looking at them all dressed up in their stuff and I remember saying to my guitar player, 'Ah, that stuff's so of-the-moment. It'll never last. We're real musicians over here!'" MÖTLEY CRÜE recently recorded four new songs for "The Dirt" movie. Bassist Nikki Sixx described the recordings as "real and raw. Everybody is playing like mad and the songs crush," he wrote on Twitter. "[Producer] Bob Rock brought the sounds. Plus we have a surprise that will confirm that we're outta our minds." MÖTLEY CRÜE's last studio album was 2008's "Saints Of Los Angeles", which was followed by a 2009 "Greatest Hits" compilation. A tour film about MÖTLEY CRÜE's final shows, "The End", came out in 2016. In 2015, MÖTLEY CRÜE completed "The Final Tour", closing the book on the band's iconic career after performing a total of 164 shows in 72 markets, grossing over $100 million. To cement the sense of finality, the four members of MÖTLEY CRÜE in 2014 publicly signed a "cessation of touring" contract that prevents any of them from performing under the CRÜE name in the future.
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